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Monday, March 5, 2018

Alisa Walsh Reports from "Ready Los Angeles"

The Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board invited industry partners to attend a Crisis Preparedness Summit last Monday. We were very impressed!
LATCB invited partners to the L.A. Convention Center for this half day event a week ago. On the agenda: The Importance of Planning, an Overview of the City's Emergency Response, Hardening Soft Targets, LATCB's Role in a Crisis, #Recoverstrong and Reviewing Your Response.

Alisa Walsh: "Security at events is on the forefront of everyone's mind. It is something that needs to be addressed. All of our clients are certainly asking all of the questions that they should be asking these days. What event security measures are in place? We rely heavily on the venues to have security plans in place but we as event producers have to ensure that we provide our customers with that information and that we ask these questions on our end as well. There is a lot we can do to prepare for every sort of scenario but there is also a lot we can do to support our clients and attendees should they need it.

I was very impressed with the amount of information and the number of positives that the City of Los Angeles does have in place. It was interesting to hear from all of the different aspects; transportation, LAX Airport, the Mayor's Office, the City, the EOC. We have a lot of great plans in place. One example: the bollards that the L.A. Convention Center installed to block vehicle access. I walked away with the knowledge that the City of L.A. takes security very seriously and that they are prepared for certain scenarios.

The most profound insight for me was shared by one emergency management team member. The emergency management teams will come into place but the true First Responders are actually your neighbors. The people standing next to you, your neighbors on your street or in your building; we as a community have to come together and talk about how to develop a plan as friends and colleagues and neighbors."

• L.A. is prone to 13 of 16 natural and manmade disasters (volcanic eruption, ice storms, hurricanes not applicable).
• Every September City and County organizations train with US military.
• Emergency Operation Center – in operation for every major event and recent natural disasters.
• Resilience by design – create opportunities for every disaster possible, retrofitting buildings, creating ordinances and more.
• March 2nd – signing of new resilience plan- resilience strategy requires redundancy in water.
• Mayor signed telecommunications company so that Verizon, AT&T, and others will open up communications for emergency messages regardless of personal carrier.
• NotifyLA - City of LA first city to have earthquake early warning on cell phones and classrooms – by the end of 2018. Doors of fire stations will auto open so trucks can get out quickly, Transportation will slow and stop trains, with a 8-10 second warning, elevator doors open at next closest floor.

Emergency Management Department

• First responder that is helping in a disaster is your neighbor
• EMD - Coordinates emergency preparedness response and recovery, provides a unified and streamlined chain of command to coordinate resources
• Signing contract with AirBnb to open homes in case of emergency, also open internet lines

• More than 75% of Americans receive breaking news from social media rather than traditional news sources
• 42% of US adults get most of their news from friends and family via Facebook and vast majority of them (87%) follow links to full news stories
• 86% of adults are online, for an average of 5 hours per day, surpassing TV
• Training and exercises are crucial

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